Basic Web Building: A Guide For Designers

Flashy websites look nice, but they can be slow to load. Simplicity is often the key to success. Keep reading to learn how to create a simple and clean site.

The faster a web page loads, the more it will be appreciated. You should minimize the loading time of your site’s pages. If your visitors are waiting forever while something is loading on your site, there is a good chance they will quickly leave and never return.

Buy a program to help you design a great website, there are many available in the marketplace. Many of these programs are easy to use and you can build a great website rather quickly. Should your website not be appealing, then your visitor count is going to be low.

Choose proper graphic for your web designs. Bitmap images usually are big and don’t work as well as PNGs. For non-photographic graphics choose a PNG if the graphic has less than 256 colors. Otherwise, choose a GIF. JPEG images can be used for photos.

Keep a simple front page. A lot of people will only look at the front page. That’s where they are making the decision whether to spend more time on your site. Describe your business and offerings but minimize distractions on the page.

Web Browsers

It is important to remember to test your website’s design on various web browsers. Each web browser has a slightly different way of how they illustrate the website, and in a couple of cases these little differences could have major effects on the experience for the user. There are a ton of resources you could use, so you are able to find out the browsers that currently have the most popularity. Make sure to view your site in the most-used web browsers and as many mobile browsers as possible.

Try using fixed-position navigation to let your users navigate with ease. This technique involves locking a site’s navigation panel in place as the visitor scrolls down the page. This is good for visitors, but also for internet marketing professionals, because it helps facilitate the desired action.

Having problems with website development? Know that you can get some ideas off the Internet. There are tons and tons of sites you can glean inspiration from. Find websites you like, and figure out which aspects make the site appealing, then think about ways you can borrow or improve the idea on your own site. You will have to do more than borrow ideas to be successful, though. You also need to take things up a notch.

Visitors do not enjoy seeing a website counter on your page. While this used to be a way for webmasters to show off their coding skill, it now only serves to make a site look dated. Get rid of visitor counters and encourage social media interaction instead.

If you have ideas for multiple websites, it’s a good move to go ahead and reserve a domain name now. It should be creative and cover the area you wish to dive into. There are many people who have similar ideas. Great minds often think alike.

A tagline should be shown in full view on your website. A tagline is a motto or statement that expresses what your business is all about. This can be beneficial in introducing users to your site.

Even if you invest large amounts of money in your website, it’s not a good idea to host a site yourself. You should do the design all by yourself (or as much of it as you possibly can), but allowing another person to be the keeper of your site will let you be free and will allow you to have your mind on different things and not just the site’s security and safety.

In order to evaluate your web page design skills accurately, it’s a good idea to start off with small, simple websites where your successes and shortcomings will be easy to spot. Learn from your successes and your mistakes as you expand your site.

Start building the first page of your site with a template to keep the process simple and straightforward. This allows you to get comfortable with the general processes of website development in an easy-to-understand environment; you can always move on to more complex layouts as you gain experience.

Be careful when introducing new colors into the design of your website. You need to ensure that the text on your site is easily readable against your chosen background. The better choice is using darker fonts against backgrounds that are lighter. When in doubt about the effectiveness of your color choices, solicit the opinions of friends.

If you want to create a site quickly, pay attention to time management. It can be helpful since building a site requires many small tasks. These tasks can build up and become overwhelming. Handle them as they come up.

Consider site security. Purchase a SSL certificate if you handle payments or other person information. Your host may have additional security features.

Create a favicon for your website. This tiny graphic can make your site more recognizable if visitors bookmark your site. When they pull up their bookmarks, your memorable favicon will stand out. Create a favicon that works well with the theme and logo of your site.

Pay close attention to the backgrounds of your site design. Some sites use moving GIF images in the background which may at times be good, but mostly it just makes the text hard to read. Chose a background that complements your website’s content, rather than a background that clashes with your website’s content. Your website’s visitors will then find it easier to read your website’s content.

Don’t pay for images; search for free stock images instead. You can find these images across the Internet, and some are very high quality. By saving money on the images you use, you can spend that money on other aspects of design and business.

You have to understand, and believe it or not many don’t, that the logo you place on your site is actually an important tool and affects return traffic to the site. The logo is who you are, what you can provide and representative of the professionalism you want visitors to feel when they come to your website. If you are having difficulty creating a logo, enlist the help of an expert.

Stay Competitive

If you want your website to be more attractive, consider adding your own pictures. Pictures help your site seem more approachable and user friendly. People like to look at pictures, so they will probably spend more time on your site.

Always keep learning to stay competitive. As you well know, nearly everything in the tech industry changes at the speed of light, and if you don’t keep up with this progress your site will show it. Reading design blogs is a great way to learn what is trending so you can stay competitive.

When you design a website, don’t forget to put in a link that points directly to your blog. Your blog content should illustrate that you are an expert in your field. Ensure that it is found easily so that your readers can get a better experience between your site and blog.

Web Design

Anything published on your site needs to be something that you know and understand well. If you’re going to have a blog site or something similar, you have to be sure things are done to learn about that subject before posting anything. When you post incorrect or unclear information, you will lose visitors. The trick to a great blog is knowing your subject.

If you want to learn about web design, explore the multitude of resources available to you. You will find an endless amount of resources for great web design in the form of books, articles and online blogs. This is an excellent way to become a more skilled web designer and learn more about the trade.

Sites using Flash may look “flashy,” but they take way too long for many people to load. A clean, crisp, easy to navigate site will be far more successful than an excessively flashy one. Use the tips you learned here to create a great website that won’t distract your viewers.